


Victory's Contagious

by xenoglossy



Category: Glory and Gore - Lorde (Song)
Genre: Dystopia, F/F, Gladiators, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:11:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xenoglossy/pseuds/xenoglossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The blow caught Maya off-guard and she went down hard, tasting blood. A low murmur coursed through the stands--they hadn't written her off yet, she thought, but they weren't completely sure she'd get up. Well, audiences liked suspense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victory's Contagious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tristesses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/gifts).



The blow caught Maya off-guard and she went down hard, tasting blood. A low murmur coursed through the stands--they hadn't written her off yet, she thought, but they weren't completely sure she'd get up. Well, audiences liked suspense. Maya didn't exactly have time to milk the drama of the moment, though, because her opponent's blade was coming down for the killing blow. She rolled out of the way and sprang back to her feet. She’d been careless, fighting lazily because she’d underestimated her opponent’s skill. She wouldn’t do that again.

Before long, she and her opponent were back on an even footing, swords clashing, neither quite gaining the upper hand. Maya’s breathing came heavily, and sweat trickled down the back of her neck. She could feel the crowd’s tension building; they probably didn’t often see fights that were this close. Maya definitely hadn’t had a challenge like this in a while. She should, probably, be frustrated that she couldn’t just dispatch her enemy and be done with it, but some part of her was almost enjoying the puzzle of predicting her opponent’s movements, calculating the right balance of defense and offense, watching for an opening. It was probably good for her skills to get a workout like this, anyway--she’d obviously been getting lazy and complacent, or she wouldn’t have taken that fall.

Finally, she spotted a hole in her opponent’s defenses that was big enough for her to do something with, and she went on the attack with renewed viciousness. Her opponent realized her own mistake and tried to counter, but it wasn’t enough. Maya had her on the ground within minutes. She stepped down hard on her opponent’s stomach to keep her from getting up, but the other woman wasn’t making much of an effort to do that anyway. This was it, then. Taking a deep breath and trying not to think about it very hard, Maya plunged her sword into her opponent’s chest. Then she yanked it out and wiped the blood off as best she could on the sand. It was over.

The audience erupted into cheers, and Maya held up her sword and threw her head back, letting their cries wash over her. She told herself that what she was feeling was relief that it was over and she had survived. Someone was dead, after all. Any other positive emotion would be unacceptable.

\---

When Maya got back to the barracks, Ali was waiting by the door. She threw her arms around Maya, and Maya caught a whiff of the alcohol Ali had apparently been trying to drown her worries in. The stuff they got in here was always nasty--you could probably use it to take paint off the walls--but sometimes sobriety got to be unpleasant enough that it became an appealing alternative.

It took a long moment for Ali to pull away, like she was afraid Maya might disappear as soon as she did. “You made it,” she said--sort of unnecessarily, Maya thought, but it was hard to know what to say in moments like this. She’d been on the other side of them enough to know that. Then Ali raised a hand to Maya’s face, lightly running her fingers over the bruise on Maya’s cheek and the split lip. “Are you all right?”

“It’s nothing much,” Maya said. She had a few other cuts and bruises in less visible places, but as long as she had no broken bones, major blood loss, or other things that would take ages to recover from, things were going pretty well.

Ali looked unconvinced. “Well, you won, that’s what matters,” she said finally.

“Told you I would.”

“Yeah, but you could've been wrong.”

“I haven't been yet.”

“There's a first time for everything.” The lightness in Ali’s tone sounded forced.

“Well, hopefully I'm not due to be wrong anytime in the near future,” Maya said. It was pretty lame as reassurances went, but it was the best she could do at the moment.

Ali shook her head as if to dismiss that whole avenue of discussion. "Anyway, that's one more fight down, at least, which makes... how many more until you can get out of here?"

Maya opened her mouth to reply and then realized that she didn't know. When had she stopped counting?

Ali put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. "I know it seems impossible sometimes, but don't give up on freedom, okay? We'll leave this place one day. Together."

"I know. We definitely will," Maya said, and wondered if it sounded as fake as it felt. 

Later that night, Maya lay pressed against Ali in her narrow bunk. Ali, probably assisted by the drinking she’d done earlier, had gone to sleep ages ago, but Maya was staring at the ceiling, playing and replaying that conversation in her mind. Ali had assumed that Maya had lost count of the battles she had left because she’d given up, resigned herself to dying here long before she earned her freedom. It was a pretty reasonable assumption. Giving up was common--normal, you could even say. Even the girls who were here more or less voluntarily, lured by promises of a better life if they survived enough fights, sometimes ended up that way, and the ones who’d been sold by families with too many children and too little money almost always did, sooner or later. There had been that one small, quiet girl--Sonya?--who’d arrived the same week Maya had, and they hadn’t been friends exactly, but Maya had felt some sort of kinship with her, some sort of reassurance in knowing that she wasn’t the only one who was lost and alone and afraid. But after about a month, Sonya had just stopped eating. She hadn’t lasted long after that.

So if Maya was falling into despair now, it wasn’t much of a surprise. She was probably overdue for it, if anything. But she had the sick feeling that that wasn’t what was going on at all. What if she had stopped imagining freedom not because she assumed she’d never get it, but because she no longer wanted it? What if she’d started to enjoy this life? She didn’t like killing, exactly, but there was exhilaration in the fight itself. And what was waiting for her outside of the arena? Nothing much, really. She had no family, and no decent plan for earning her living. She’d have a moment of celebrity and a small cash prize and when she ran through both of those things, it’d be back to being one of the thousands of faceless, interchangeable gutter brats of the undercity. In here, she had a clear purpose, even if it was just staying alive, and, well... in here, she _was somebody_. And some terrible part of her was willing to put up with the gore for the sake of the glory.

Ali shifted a little and sighed in her sleep, and Maya turned her head towards her. Of course Ali hadn’t suspected any of this, because Ali was a good person, someone who, after all this time, still hated hurting other people and still cried at night sometimes when she thought Maya was asleep and wouldn’t hear her, and she thought Maya was a good person too. Maya wondered if she should tell her that she was wrong. She would be disgusted, wouldn’t want anything to do with Maya anymore, probably, but maybe that was for the best. 

But that was something she could think about later, she told herself. She had to at least try to get some sleep. Tomorrow, after all, she would fight again.


End file.
